The Spare Room is a bit of a dive bar located just outside of the sparkling lights of the huge hotels and casinos.  It boasts cheap liquor and quality company.  Although not a strip club The Spare Room is known for it's beautiful cocktail waitresses.  The shoddy interior and laidback vibe keeps most of the tourists away so its a great place for locals to come and relax.

Dake walked into The Spare Room, remembering it from his early days on Santos.  It was rarely frequented by racers or their groupies so he should be relatively anonymous there.  Or at least he hoped it was still off the race map.

Looking for an empty table, Dake opted for a table away from the door.  He flagged a waitress and ordered a beer.  He sat back and replayed what had happened the last couple of days.  He was making a complete mess of things on Destiny.  Between whatever he felt for Wei-Li, his apparent desire to get his face beat in by Geoff, Kale's apparent discomfort around Dake, and the crew's general ambivalence around him, Dake was not sure he even belonged on the ship anymore.  On the other hand he was doing what he loved, flying.  Being a driver, while providing a nice wardrobe, was not the same as feeling the thrusters humming through the deck panels or the thrill of a rapid descent into atmo.  It was almost as good a skiff racing.  Almost.

Dake decided to spend the rest of his time off of the ship trying to find a way to find a place on board that did not involve pissing off everyone.

Lyssa noticed him the second her walked in from where she stood at the cutout behind the bar that divided the kitchen from the main floor.  Dake Collins.  It'd been a long while.  There had been a time that her and Dake and all the rest of the crew had come to The Spare Room after a good day of racing but those days were past.  Last she heard Dake had left Santo, a smart move.  Lyssa had stayed and look where it had got her.  She used to be the the crew chief for the best skiff racer on Santo ... now she was a waitress in the dive bar where she used to celebrate wins.

"Take this will ya," Carolyn said, shoving a beer in Lyssa's hands, "Table 5."

"What?" Lyssa said as Carolyn started taking off her apron, table five was where Dake was sitting, "I - I can't -"

"I'm on break.  So it's your table now."

"Carolyn!"

"See you in thirty." Carolyn called behind her as she left through the back door.

Lyssa stared down at the beer in her hand.  It was new on tap.  That wasn't important. She'd been avoiding Dake ever since the incident.  She couldn't do this.

"Lyssa, table 5 let's go." her boss called from the bar.

Lyssa swallowed hard and made her way out of the kitchen and towards his table with no idea what she was going to do.  She kept her head down as she placed the mug on the table's surface and almost just turned and hightailed it back to the kitchen but then his eye caught hers ...

"That's a  ... new brew ... very good ..." she mumbled lamely about the beer.

Dake looked up as the beer was delivered to his table.  He tried to say thank you as the waitress mumbled under her breath.  But he'd already seen her face.  Lyssa.

"Ta Ma De."

Exactly who he did not want to see on his return to Santos.  Last person he wanted to see at all.  Ever.  And there she was putting a beer on his table.

For some reason, 'How's life?' didn't seem like the right thing to say.  What he wanted to tell her was graphic and rude.  But that was the old Dake.  The one that was currently running into trouble yet again.

"Sorry, Lyssa." he finally said.  "I didn't really expect to run into anyone here, least of all you."

What could he have said to her?  Obviously she had lost her spot on the skiff crew.  But a waitress?  Part of him had wanted to laugh.  He was not sure what the other part wanted.

Lyssa turned to face him full on.  There was no hiding now.

"Wasn't exactly expecting to see you here either." she said, "Thought you left Santo.  What are you doing here?"

Now that she was past the initial shock of seeing him she couldn't help but feel irritation at his presence.  She'd chosen this bar because no one from the race scene frequented it - not since Dake's glory days.  How dare he show up here again and bring with him all the baggage she'd been hiding away.

Dake shrugged at Lyssa's question.

"Closest place to the port I could think of," he offered by way of an explanation. "On my boat, when you get a chance at shore leave, you take it."

He almost cringed at the use of Rhaef's own words.  At least they were not Geoff's.

"Besides, like I said, I didn't expect to see anyone here.  What brings you to this lovely establishment?"

Dake had to try hard to keep the smirk from creeping onto his face.  At least he was still flying.  Lyssa was now a waitress at one of the places they used to frequent.  It felt like karma kicking in to Dake.  Even though he still had no proof, he was sure it was Lyssa who had sabotaged Zach's skiff on that last race.  The bonus she would have gotten for Dake winning the trophy that year would make such a win necessary.  At the same time, she was at least still on Santos.  His own family kicked him out, his friends had abandoned him, and his life as a skiff racer had been lost.  Leaving Santos was his only option.  Lyssa, on the other hand, probably still had her friends and at least a few contacts.

So he was flying again.  Maybe not a skiff but it was more then she had.  Dake had taken the brunt of the fall but she hadn't been allowed near a race track since the rumors had started circulating that she may have had a hand in the whole thing.  A rumor she was fairly certain that Dake started himself to try to get the blame off of himself.

Lyssa cocked her head to the side at Dake's last question and fixed him with a withering stare, "I work here." she said flatly.

"You see, you weren't the only one that lost his livelihood after your little stunt, DC," she used his old nickname in scathing tones.  She hadn't intended on coming right out and confronting him.  She'd avoided him for years because she couldn't bring herself to look in the eye the man that would take her down with him.

Dake felt the anger start to boil within him, just like it had with Geoff just a short time ago.

"My little stunt?  My stunt?"  He could hardly believe that she was blaming him.  "My stunt was flying.  That's all I ever did.  I didn't need to resort to cheating to beat someone.  I did it with skill."  He was trying to keep his voice down but had no idea if it was working.

"I never laid a finger on Zach's skiff.  I'm still willing to be you did, though."

Dake further fought the urge to stand up and leave.  While this was not what he wanted when he left Destiny, he was determined to have a drink and the one in front of him was already available.  Before he reached for it, though, he had a very sobering thought.  He looked up to see who was watching.  The last thing he needed was for his face to be plastered on a wave showing him waving a beer while having it out with his former crew chief.

Lyssa saw the spark of anger in Dake's eye before he even started talking.  He always had been a hothead.  The kind of guy that sometimes got in over his head because he was so impulsive.

"You're right, you didn't need to, which is why I've been wondering all this time why you even bothered." Lyssa said, getting heated as well, "And I knew it was you that started the rumors that this was somehow all my doing.  I like to win Dake but not that much.  I was a convenient scapegoat though, wasn't I?  Bet you thought you'd just flash that smile of yours and blame it on me and everything would go back to normal.  You being the golden boy and all."

Lyssa realized that she was starting to raise her voice and lowered it as she continued, "And your little plan might not have worked, they still crucified you but it left enough doubt in everyone's minds that I couldn't get anywhere near a race again.  So thank you for that."

"Why I bothered?  Why I...  Are you even listening to me?  I was already winning.  I was going to blow him out of the water fair and square.  Now I can't race in a legitimate race if my life depended on it.  Why would I risk everything I had when I didn't need to?"

The argument was becoming more than Dake wanted to deal with.  Why was he bothering?  He had come out to avoid any more fights, not start another one.

"What does it matter?  Neither of us is getting near a race again without paying for a seat in the stands."

Lyssa studied Dake as he spoke and for the first time since the media had sensationalized "Dake's Mistake" she realized one simple thing, "You really didn't do it ..."

Her eyes searched his for a moment.  After the whirlwind that followed that big race her and Dake had never talked.  Sure they'd thrown accusations around - everyone was back then - but they hadn't really talked.  All this time she'd been so certain that it was him. Had been blaming him for ruining her life, she'd never even considered that maybe he hadn't ...

"I just said that!  Don't you..." Dake realized that Lyssa's tone had changed from accusatory to one of enlightenment.

"Wait.  You honestly thought I had done it?  No doubt in your mind."

The last sentence was not a question.  If Lyssa had believed all these years and was not merely pressing the hype to draw attention away from herself, then she had not done it either.

"I always thought it was you."

Lyssa stared at the man she had blamed for ruining her life for all these years, almost unwilling to let go of the anger she felt towards him but realizing that she had to.  She had to because she did believe him.  And it looks like he believed her to.

"So neither of us did it ..."

Lyssa found herself sinking into the seat beside Dake as she processed all of this.  Because the thing was, if Dake hadn't done it ...

"...then who did?"

Dake shrugged his shoulders at Lyssa's question.  He had no more answers at this point than she did.  But now that he was reasonably sure that Lyssa had not committed the sabotage and he knew he had not done it he felt the urge to clear his team's name.

"Look, I'm sorry for the way I acted.  Tonight and before.  Racing was the only thing I had after my brother..."  He let the sentence trail off.  "Doesn't matter.  What does matter is finding out who sabotaged Jake's skiff and why they pointed the finger at us.  I don't like this hanging over my head."

Dake thought for a few moments, a plan starting to grow in his mind.  Obviously Lyssa and himself were not going to get anywhere near the old investigation, if there was even anything left to look at.  But some of the other, less well known, members of their old crew might.

"You still in touch with anyone from the old crew?  Oh, and I guess a 'how have you been?' is in order, too."

Lyssa felt a huge weight lifted off her shoulders that she hadn't even realized she'd been carrying.  They hadn't figured anything out yet, in fact, she knew less now then she had a few minutes ago when she'd been convinced that it was Dake that had done it and yet somehow she felt lighter.

"I'm sorry too.  I feel bad for thinking you were jwei gai won se*.  I remember how hard everything was with your brother - I know what this all meant to you ... meant to me too.  I'd do just about anything to get back out there.  Working on skiff's was what I was good at.  I'm a lousy server." she laughed as her statement was obvious, she'd been ignoring all her other tables for far too long already.

"I think there's someone out there that deserves to take the fall, and if it isn't us - I want to know who."

After Dake's last question Lyssa raised her eyebrows, "I'm pretty sure we both know exactly how each other has been.  As to the old crew, a few of the guys still work at the track's.  People thought of them as too low down for any blame to fall their way. 'Course most of them blame either you or me so they might not be exactly happy to hear from us.  Maybe Taylor ..."

DC leaned back in his chair.  His entire plan for the evening had been to figure out to how to fit in properly on board his ship.  Now he was contemplating getting back the respect he deserved here on Santos.  And then what?  Back to skiff racing. Leave Destiny behind?

No, that's not your plan, is it? the little voice in his head said.  And it was right.  He was not going to leave Destiny.  There was enough to keep him there.  Lei...and Wei-Li.  And he owed Kale.  He had made a promise to fly Destiny wherever she needed to go.  He was not going to back out for the chance at his old glory days.  But still...

"I'm going to head down to the track," DC said to Lyssa.  "You're welcome to join me when you get off.  Or now if you're getting fired."  He motioned over to the bar where the bartender had been glowering for a few minutes now.  "I'm not getting back behind the controls of a skiff again, but you still have a chance and I still believe in honor and I'd like mine back."

Standing up, leaving his beer still untouched, he dropped some script onto the table.

"This is one chapter that I can at least get closed."